Marin Voice: Levine is the local choice for Assembly

I'M JOINING with many other local elected leaders from Marin and Sonoma to support Marc Levine for Assembly.

I've worked closely with Marc on issues impacting Marin and the North Bay, and I can attest to his intelligence and effectiveness.

As a San Rafael Council member, Marc has shown that he can balance competing interests and will put his community first.

From renewable energy, to job retention, to issues impacting Marin children, Marc has shown leadership on important issues and achieved results. That's why many of us were pleased when Marc achieved a strong showing in the June primary.

Marc is someone we can trust to stand up for our local schools and for local control. He has the local perspective we need in Sacramento.

Too many Sacramento politicians believe they should control local funding and decisions. A state senator once told me in no uncertain terms that the state knew better how to spend our local resources. We've seen the impact on California of this kind of thinking.

Marc knows that we need to give local communities a voice.

It's local officials such as Marc who know how to balance budgets, make policies work, and really get things done. They know the needs of their local communities. This is the perspective we need more elected leaders to have in the state Capitol.

While Marc is raising two young kids in Marin and has deep roots here, Marc's opponent, Assemblyman Michael Allen, just moved to Marin to run because redistricting eliminated his Napa/Solano/Sonoma district.

No doubt he will return to his home base the day after the election, if he loses the race.

Allen represents too much of what is wrong with Sacramento, and was found guilty just last year of serious ethics violations for accepting a $100,000 lobbying contract and then voting on the issue that he was paid to lobby.

Further, his rhetoric does not match his work.

Earlier this year, Allen claimed he would follow Gov. Jerry Brown's lead on reducing state pension costs. But the plan Allen helped craft fell short of the modest goals on which he loudly promised to deliver.

Many local officials, myself included, were disappointed and saw this as evidence that Allen has a credibility gap.

It was Sacramento interests that moved Allen into this district and are spending heavily to try to elect him. Sacramento shouldn't be anointing our next Assembly member, but that's just what Sacramento interests are attempting.

It speaks volumes that so many local leaders are choosing to reject Sacramento's choice and stand with Marc.

The mayors of Tiburon, Sausalito, Novato, Larkspur, Ross, Sonoma and Santa Rosa all support Levine, as do many other local leaders.

Marc understands our local issues.

This is an important assembly race for a number of reasons. California's new "open primary" system opened the door for a local Democrat, Marc Levine, to take on Sacramento's chosen candidate and provide a needed choice for voters across the spectrum.

It's also a time of challenges for our state. We need leaders like Marc who will seek innovative solutions and break through partisan gridlock to help our schools, higher education system and economy.

Larry Chu is a councilman and former mayor of Larkspur. He was the chairman of a countywide panel on public employee pensions.